


The Procession of Us in the Limelight

by missingmymothership



Series: Born in the City [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, I'm so sorry guys, Prostitute Dean, Underage Substance Use, Writer!Dean, but that comes later, i don't even know what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-18 06:02:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3558815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missingmymothership/pseuds/missingmymothership
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drifting is a constant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dean turns sixteen on a Tuesday in Minnesota. It is dark when he wakes up, and equally so when he goes to bed. The heat stops working sometime during the night. John is gone, but John is always gone. Nothing to cry over. 

Sam crawls into bed with him, a pudgy eleven year old with a case of the shivers so bad he vibrates the bed. Dean tries not to shiver, too.

The next morning, the radiator in the corner clicks to life and Dean makes coffee for the both of them. He figures since neither of them got sleep the night before, coffee won’t hurt his brother.

John comes back a week later. Simple salt and burn, just hard to track down info, he said. Dean doesn’t believe him for a second, but it’s easier to nod and coax Sammy into the car and drive off to their next destination.

They run out of money for food when John goes off chasing a wendigo in Hurleyville and underestimates the amount of time it’d take for him to finish the hunt. Dean gets arrested, stays at Sonny’s for a couple months and it hurts him to leave, but. That’s how it goes. That’s how it’s always gone. 

He contemplates dropping out of school.

It’s summer before he knows it.

Dean looks at his hands sometimes in the dark, runs the pads of his fingers over the callouses that line them like an old canvas jacket is always lined with fleece. He takes up drinking with people he knows from around, goes home, and sees how well he can aim with double vision. It proves useful later, but he doesn’t do it because it’s useful. It’s just something to do.

The days pass, long and sticky and hot, everywhere they go. They drift so much. Sam and the heat’re the only constants he has, and when Sam’s off at some little dipshit’s house he only has the heat.

He comes home sunburnt and buzzed most days. Never once sees his father while they’re staying someplace.

Figures.


	2. Chapter 2

The rest of the summer was lazy. Dean didn't go back to school in the fall, just threw himself into hunting because it was the only way he'd be wanted, right? His father was around and approving more when they hunted together. They bond over the blood and the killing and the gore; Dean forces himself to like it.

Without school, he has more free time and nothing to do. John won't let him hunt some cases, says something about taking care of Sam, not leaving him alone. Dean would rather his brother were alone more. He'd have more of a chance at being normal, and hell, that's what the kid wanted, wasn't it?

One such case where he's left behind, Sammy goes to a friend's house for dinner. Dean ends up at the library and loses himself in the smell of old books and the quiet shuffle of chairs on carpet. If he were being honest with himself, he loves to read. He'd never bring a book home though. The pages would disintegrate when John dripped blood and beer on them.

He fiddles around and does nothing until closing. He pretends he doesn't want to write.

The next chance Dean gets, he buys a notebook with hard-earned money _(oh god he feels so dirty)_ and slips a pen in his pocket when he goes to buy groceries. It's his job to pay for things now because John keeps leaving without him now that it's fall. 

He pays for their motel in a back alleyway and comes back to an empty room. A note, telling him where his brother went.

Dean takes a long shower and doesn't emerge until the water's been icy for a half hour. He screams through blue ink on blue lines in a blue-covered notebook and titles his first work "Blue Monday." He thinks Vonnegut would laugh. Likely at him.

He wouldn't actually blame him for it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean never writes in first person. He's not quite sure how.

_Blue Monday._

_It's a "good morning," brown paper lunch sacks and glass bottles and "I'm hungry."_

_Cereal dust at the bottom of the bag and a tired sigh that's somehow one of his_

_Sending the kid off to school to eat the school lunches and shivering in the room with the broken radiator._

_He waits in the mornings under the blankets_

_Waits til he sees the frost recede from the windows and then watches it come back when it's dark._

_His brother is safe._

_It's sore knees and a twenty dollar bill and keeping the room another night_

_"Good boy" and wet pavement and exhaustion creeping in at the edges like fire_

_And he can never think straight long enough to escape._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In six months, Dean's better at writing.

_Rictus_

_Fingers curl up slow in dusty light_

_Bones click_

_Corners of his mouth stretch up because that_

_is how it works._

_Smile, pretty boy._

_Scrub it away with steel wool and cheap_

_motel soap, spit in the shower til your mouth cracks._

_The bruises on your neck aren't there._

The days stretch into fall and he doesn't know what to do with himself. Dean's tired, he's so, so tired. 

He keeps going for Sam. The kid complains when they eat ramen for the fifth night in a row and Dean has to hide in the bathroom with the shower on to make sure his brother doesn't see him break down. He still keeps going for him though. 

John thinks nothing of it, just assumes his son's getting lucky and says absolutely zilch. 

That's the way it goes.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean burns the notebook late at night, tosses it in with a corpse when nobody's looking.

He's taken to licking his pennies so maybe he'll absorb their luck. He ends up catching the flu. John doesn't believe in vaccination.

He gets his first job as a mechanic in Illinois, smokes with the guys out back and brings in Metallica tapes for them to play while they work, and is relieved that maybe he doesn't have to come home dirty anymore. He sucks mints after work because even though his father doesn't care what he does, his brother cares and he can't let the kid down. Sam comes home full of pamphlets about how dangerous smoking is. Dean reads a couple for the laughs.

He makes Sam Easy Mac for the third night in a row, and it's the first time neither of them complain about it. By the time they've finished, it's gluey and cold.

His hands are oily when he gets back to the motel after work. They are the cleanest they've ever been.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at makingmyownmothership.tumblr.com or as Salamanderq on dA.


End file.
